Charles Dickens and Music | Page 5

had it illuminated that night in my?honour. There was really a very fair opera, but it is?curious that the chorus has been always, time out of?mind, made up of labourers in the quarries, who don't?know a note of music, and sing entirely by ear.
But much as he loved music, Dickens could never bear the?least sound or noise while he was studying or writing, and?he ever waged a fierce war against church bells and itinerant musicians. Even when in Scotland his troubles did not cease, for he writes about 'a most infernal piper practising under the window for a competition of pipers which is to come off shortly.' Elsewhere he says that he found Dover 'too bandy' for him (he carefully explains he does not refer to its legs), while in a letter to Forster he complains bitterly of the?vagrant musicians at Broadstairs, where he 'cannot write half an hour without the most excruciating organs, fiddles, bells, or glee singers.' The barrel-organ, which he somewhere calls an 'Italian box of music,' was one source of annoyance, but bells were his special aversion. 'If you know anybody at St. Paul's,' he wrote to Forster, 'I wish you'd send round and ask them not to ring the bell so. I can hardly hear my own ideas as they come into my head, and say what they mean.' His bell experiences at Genoa are referred to elsewhere (p. 57).
How marvellously observant he was is manifest in the numerous references in his letters and works to the music he heard in the streets and squares of London and other places. Here is a description of Golden Square, London, W. (N.N.):
Two or three violins and a wind instrument from?the Opera band reside within its precincts. Its?boarding-houses are musical, and the notes of pianos?and harps float in the evening time round the head of?the mournful statue, the guardian genius of the little?wilderness of shrubs, in the centre of the square....?Sounds of gruff voices practising vocal music invade?the evening's silence, and the fumes of choice tobacco?scent the air. There, snuff and cigars and German?pipes and flutes, and violins and violoncellos, divide?the supremacy between them. It is the region of song?and smoke. Street bands are on their mettle in Golden?Square, and itinerant glee singers quaver involuntarily as they raise their voices within its boundaries.
We have another picture in the description of Dombey's house, where--
the summer sun was never on the street but in the?morning, about breakfast-time.... It was soon gone?again, to return no more that day, and the bands of?music and the straggling Punch's shows going after?it left it a prey to the most dismal of organs and?white mice.
As a Singer
Most of the writers about Dickens, and especially his personal friends, bear testimony both to his vocal power and his love of songs and singing. As a small boy we read of him and his sister Fanny standing on a table singing songs, and acting them as they sang. One of his favourite recitations was Dr. Watts' 'The voice of the sluggard,' which he used to give with great effect. The memory of these words lingered long in his mind, and both Captain Cuttle and Mr. Pecksniff quote them with?excellent appropriateness.
When he grew up he retained his love of vocal music, and showed a strong predilection for national airs and old songs. Moore's Irish Melodies had also a special attraction for him. In?the early days of his readings his voice frequently used to fail him, and Mr. Kitton tells us that in trying to recover the lost power he would test it by singing these melodies to himself as he walked about. It is not surprising, therefore, to find numerous references to these songs, as well as to?other works by Moore, in his writings.
From a humorous account of a concert on board ship we gather that Dickens possessed a tenor voice. Writing to his daughter from Boston in 1867, he says:
We had speech-making and singing in the saloon of the?Cuba after the last dinner of the voyage. I think I?have acquired a higher reputation from drawing out the?captain, and getting him to take the second in 'All's?Well' and likewise in 'There's not in the wide world'[2] (your parent taking the first), than from anything?previously known of me on these shores.... We also sang (with a Chicago lady, and a strong-minded woman from?I don't know where) 'Auld Lang Syne,' with a tender?melancholy expressive of having all four been united?from our cradles. The more dismal we were, the more?delighted the company were. Once (when we paddled i'?the burn) the captain took a little cruise round the?compass on his own account, touching at the Canadian?Boat Song,[3] and taking in supplies at Jubilate, 'Seas between us braid ha' roared,' and roared like ourselves.
J.T. Field, in his Yesterdays with Authors, says: 'To hear him